- Thailand’s mills have crushed 17.19m tonnes of cane so far this season; its slowest crush in six years.
- This comes as a spike in rainfall late last year meant harvesting was delayed whilst sucrose yields recovered, and field accessibility improved.
- We therefore still think Thailand will produce 7.04m tonnes of sugar this season as it’s making far slower progress year-on-year.
Thai Mills Make Slowest Start to Crush in Six Years
- Thailand’s cane crush kicked off on the 10th December, nine days later year-on-year.
- This was so the canes’ sucrose yields, which had been weakened by a late spike in rainfall, had chance to improve prior to harvest.
- All 57 of Thailand’s mills are now crushing and have crushed around 17.19m tonnes of cane with an average Commercial Cane Sugar (CCS) yield of 11.93%.
- With this, Thailand has produced 1.62m tonnes of sugar so far this season, down 427k tonnes year-on-year.
- 75% of this is raw sugar that’ll either be exported, used to make ethanol, or re-melted into refined.
Larger Mills Up Their Crush Due to Increased Ethanol Production
- Even though crushing and overall sugar production is moving slower than it did last season, some of the larger mills are crushing more cane than they usually would.
- This especially those with the capacity to produce ethanol.
- Thailand’s poor 2019/20 cane production has reduced its molasses availability meaning it must divert at least 400k tonnes of sugar towards ethanol production if it’s to satisfy the increasing fuel demand with COVID lockdowns lifted.
- However, Thailand’s raw sugar export availability could be even tighter if this trend continues.
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